1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to a system and method for identifying a location based upon a wireless network connection identifier.
2. Description of the Related Art
In current modern network environments, both wireless and wired networks are deployed for the same computing devices. In addition, workers are becoming increasingly mobile using equipment, such as laptop computers, that are easily portable yet easily connected to these wireless and wired networks.
Workers may move within an organization, such as floors of an office building, between buildings occupied by their company, or to different offices in different cities. When a worker moves between locations, many device settings ideally remain constant (such as display attributes, file locations), however other device settings are location specific. One example of a location specific setting is a network accessible printer.
When a user moves from one location, say building “A,” to another location, say building “B,” and wishes to use location specific settings, such as printers, the user is often relegated to manually adjusting these settings. If the user forgets to change these settings, he or she often discovers that the user's printouts are being printed on a printer in a different location, rather than the printer that is at the user's current location. This problem is exacerbated when the user routinely moves between locations, causing the user to remember each time to change the user's location specific settings, such as the user's default printer.
What is needed, therefore, is a system and method for using a user's wireless network connection to identify the user's physical location so that location specific settings can be set accordingly. Furthermore, what is needed is a system and method for capturing location specific settings so that, upon subsequently entering the location, the location specific settings will automatically be applied at the user's devices.